Her
by Maureen Painted Green
Summary: Mother. Daughter. Fiance. But she was so much more.


**A/N: **I'm not going to try to explain this one. It just came out of me, and I have no idea where it's from. I cry while reading all the time, but this is the only time in my life that I've cried while writing.

----------------

I never liked happy endings. I was always the kind who wished it would end imperfectly, because that was what happened to you in real life. Nobody really gets everything they want all in one tidy little package at the end of the two-hour segment that sums them up. Life is more complex than that. Life doesn't work like that.

The love stories are the worst. The star-crossed lovers braved all to find their way back to each other. The characters are just shells. Their only purpose is to tell a love story, so every other part of their story just gets cut out. I never believed in that kind of love. The "love conquers all" mentality. I didn't believe it was possible to love anyone that much. I didn't think you could care about someone when you didn't want to. I never knew you could spend your whole life wishing for something you couldn't have. I never knew it was possible to care about someone so much that it mattered more what they felt than what you felt.

No, I never believed in love until she came into my life. With her coffee addiction and her teenage daughter. With her pop culture references and abysmal eating habits. I was never the romantic guy who waits forever to get the girl. And here was this incredible woman that I wanted to be there for. I watched as she got hurt by the world's stupidest men. I can't believe they didn't realize what they let slip through their fingers. And when I comforted her, when I held her in my arms, I felt myself absorbing all her pain.

Finally, we got it together. I finally got my shot with Lorelai Gilmore. She's too much for me. She's too beautiful. Too smart. Too many people love her. And I have no idea why she chose me, but she did. And the time that I spent with her was the happiest 2 years I'll ever know. She was my everything. I loved her more than I ever believed was possible to love. I understood her the way no one else could, and somehow, she understood me to. We were supposed to be it. We were supposed to be the poster couple for love.

I was so close to a happy ending. I almost had it all. Here she was, the woman that I had spent so many years desperately in love with, and she loved me back. She was supposed to marry me. She was supposed to spend the rest of her life with me, supposed to die in my arms. And then we broke. I don't know how it happened. I've spent so many nights since then analyzing. Trying to figure out how a love so strong couldn't be enough to keep her here.

Every day of my life, I regret the night that she asked me to come. To follow her and be with her, to never look back. Every day of my life, I think about the life I could have had. Every day, I see her face, see her pleading eyes. Every moment, I hear her voice in my head, her laughter ringing in my ears. Every day, I feel the ache in my chest and arms, where I once held her so close. Every night, I wake up crying, as I stare at the empty space beside me.

She left such a big hole in my life. In my heart. In my home. Nothing could fill the space she had, so I just had to continue on, incomplete. And I waited every day. Every time I heard those bells, I looked up, hoping it would be her. Every morning, as I poured customers coffee, I wished I'd see her sitting there on the stool, begging me to give her some. Every time I shovel the snow off the walk, I remember her love of it. She lived so big, not afraid to love, to belong, to be who she was.

They told me she never married anyone either. I guess that's what happens when you give so much of yourself to someone else. There's just a void there, that nobody else can fill. And it hurts to try. It hurts to remember. It hurts to think of her, but I'm incapable of doing anything else. I realized too late how much she meant to me.

One day, I got the call. The one I never hoped to get. The one I never thought I would get. It was her daughter. "She's gone". Said Rory, sobbing into the phone. "I know you haven't seen her since that night, but she loved you. Still. I think she always will. And, Luke. I want you to be there, if it's not too painful for you. You were the father I never had, Luke. And you were everything to her. You filled a space in her that has been empty since she walked away. And Luke, she needs you. Even now." Rory's tears filled up the silence, summing up the words I couldn't bring myself to say. A long pause, and then "Okay." I said.

There were so many people there, but I don't remember any of their faces. She was as loved in death as she had been in life. It was just the way she would have wanted it, people laughing and reminiscing about her. Her daughter, her love of movies. Her crazy dog, her coffee addiction, her life. But I was broken. I just stood there, watching the life going on around me, unable to live myself. Because without her, I finally realized, that's all I was. I would only watch, would never _be_ again, without her. I would never see her smile again. Never hear her laugh again. Never even hear her yell at me again. At that moment, I would have given anything to see her at all. To watch her walk away again, to be able to tell her that I wanted her to be happy, wherever that took her. And if it was somewhere I couldn't go, that would be okay, as long as she was happy.

And finally, I gathered enough strength to walk over to the casket and say goodbye. Goodbye to the woman who had filled my life in a way I hadn't thought possible. Who had charmed her way into everyone's heart, even mine. Who had loved so much, had done so much. A woman with that much strength and character. I walked up to her for the last time. And the group that had gathered there dispersed. My last time alone with her ever. I looked into her deep blue eyes, and they were all wrong. The life was gone. The spark that had always been there when she walked into the diner on a sunny day. The crazy look she always had, the unpredictable wildness. Her dark hair looked strange streaked with gray, but beautiful still. I felt a tear roll down my cheek as I stared at her lifeless form, the only time I had ever seem her stay still. And as I held her hand for the last time, the tears kept coming, the second time in my entire life I had let myself cry like this. Both times, over her. I recalled. And out of my pocket, I took the tiny piece of metal I had carried for so many years. "Here" I whispered, slipping it onto her finger. "It's yours, forever. I'm sorry I couldn't give you the world, Lorelai, but the world was too big for me. But I have nothing else to offer. Lorelai, you already have my heart, and you always will." And as I placed my lips on hers for the last time, I could see her. I saw her laughing, drinking coffee. Saw her playing with that crazy dog, watching those movies that made her cry. Saw her face as she watched her daughter graduate high school. I saw her, mother, friend, and fiancé.

But she was so much more. Those words couldn't explain the way she always filled up any room she entered. They didn't tell about her damn stubbornness. They shed no insight into her cluttered house, her inability to cook. They labeled her, but they didn't explain who she was.

And as I walked home from that funeral, as I grabbed the spare key from above the door, which she had used so many times. As I heard the bells that always signaled her arrival. As I saw her favorite mug, stored high up on the shelf, an excuse that I made to never let anyone else use it. As I heard the faintest sounds of a David Bowie song she used to love echo from the funeral in the square, I could feel her. I could smell her, just barely. I heard her footsteps beside mine, as I walked up the stairs. As I looked at the picture of us dancing, so many years ago at Liz's wedding, she was there with me. She understood why I couldn't live. Why I couldn't move on. Why I couldn't just forget her and love someone else.

And as I write her story, I watch life going on around me. I see a young mother and her daughter cross the square together, their dark hair bouncing as they walk, and it breaks my heart. I see her in her daughter's laughing eyes, begging me for coffee from across the counter. I see her in the townies who still frequent the diner. Their voices are too loud, their smiles too bright, their joy is intoxicating, and their sorrow overwhelming. And at the same time that it's all too much, it's not enough. And here I stand, on the sidelines of the life I could have had. Just watching, the way I always have.


End file.
